Category Archives: Browsers

Mozilla Firefox is one of the most popular web browser on the Planet, it’s a free and open source browser, available for all platforms. In Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin), Firefox comes installed by default (it’s also true for most GNU/Linux distributions).

In last few years – Google Chrome has also become very popular. For Ubuntu users there are lot of open source web browsers available such as – Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Chromium (The base project, on which the Chrome is based on), Midori, Konqueror Browser (Default browser for KDE based distributions), Opera etc.

So what’s your most favorite browser in Ubuntu [12.04] or similar Linux distro such as Linux Mint, Kubuntu, Xubuntu etc ? Firefox, Chrome or what ? VOTE for your primary browser – the one you use often, more than any other browsers.

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS comes with Mozilla Firefox, installed by default. Firefox is great but if you want to use Google Chrome in Ubuntu 12.04 – then you may try Chromium (the open source project, the base of Google Chrome web browser) – it’s already there in Ubuntu Software Center. Chromium works great! but you may be missing some proprietary plugins/codecs that you may want to use. On the other hand if you want Google Chrome – then Debian Package (executable format) is available for Ubuntu or other Debian based distributions such as Linux Mint.

Google Chrome has all those proprietary stuffs such as Adobe Flash player – integrated by default. (Although that’s not a good reason because you can also install Adobe Flash player for Firefox or other browsers, surely up to this release).

Open with Software Center

Installing Chrome browser in Ubuntu 12.04

Then open the downloaded package (some_file_name.deb) with Ubuntu Software Center and hit install (as you usually install packages and applications Ubuntu Software Center). Then wait for the installation to complete.

If anything goes wrong – like missing dependencies or couldn’t open the file then open a terminal(Ctrl+Alt+t) and execute the following command(s) to first install the missing packages/libraries –

sudo apt-get install libnspr4-0d
sudo apt-get install libcurl3

Then you could install the package using the command (instead of using Software Center)

sudo dpkg -i package_name.deb

If you still get some kind of dependencies error then before executing the (just) above command, execute

Some websites track users behaviors online for providing relevant information to the user or may be for some other good reasons so it’s ok, as long as the user knows that they’re getting tracked, it seems acceptable, but in most of the cases the users are totally unaware of the fact that they’re getting tracked. That’s evil! But it’s not going to continue for long – due to a cool add-on – that will help you in tracking (and controlling ) the online trackers (so basically, it’s a meta tracker :)).

Mozilla Foundation (along with Ford Foundation) has launched an add-on for Firefox web browser named – Collusion which will allow you to discover the sites which is tracking your online activity and not only that – it will also provide you some options to control it i.e you can turn off their tracking if you want. So we are moving towards a more transparent web, now take a look at how you are going to visualize the data (of trackers and how they’re linked) – Here is a snapshot taken on my browser. Using Collusion you can visualize the tracking data/activity in real time – right from your browser – in one click.

Download/Install Collusion add-on in Mozilla Firefox

Go to plugin page and download/install it. That set, you won’t have to even restart the browser. You will notice an icon of Collusion at top-bottom corner. Click on the icon and continue your browsing. Now, come back to Collusion tab and visualize/control how you’re getting tracked and by whom – see the icons of website in the little round circles (nodes).

Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) users got Firefox installed by default – which is pretty good for browsing. If you’re not happy then there install Google Chrome or Chromium, you will be browsing seamlessly without any problem. But in the case, if you want to try any other browser in Ubuntu 11.10, then probably you are looking for Opera. Opera has already been dominating the mobile browsing market, although it’s not so popular in desktop market (it’s probably the 4th most popular browser in desktop market) but it’s a pretty good browser; well, it also support modern good stuffs (HTML5, CSS3, etc) you don’t want to miss.

Opera have a lot of cool features including tabbed browsing, mouse gesture, page zooming and a well integrated download manager (super cool!). Opera is also known as the origin of a lot of cool features that every browsers adapted later. Opera is available for a lot of platforms – GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

Opera with Ubuntu 11.10

Opera for Ubuntu/Linux Mint

The latest version of opera – 11.60 released in the first week of the Dec 2011. For Debian based linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint – download the *.deb package and install it either with Ubuntu Software Center or gdebi Package Installer.

#2. Then open the download file (something like this : opera_11.60_i386.deb) with Ubuntu Software Center (If you’re using Linux Mint then open it with gdebi package installer), click on install to continue and wait for the installation to complete.

#3. That’s All, no you can find it in Applications – >Internet. Happy Browsing

Mozilla Firefox, the most popular open source web browser on this planet, version 8 released today!

The new version of Firefox has arrived with a lot of new features, bug fixes, and improved performances in a number of things such as with HTML 5.0 elements/tags. Firefox is a cross-platform web browser, and the new release is available for all platforms such as GNU/Linux, Windows or Mac OS X. Firefox Development has adopted high frequency release cycle to provide latest cutting edge features, so all the users are expected to upgrade to latest version.

What’s New in Firefox 8.0 ?

Here is some of the some important changes or new features added in Firefox 8. (To see the complete list go here – changes in Firefox 8.)

Fixed several security and stability issues

Improved performance with audio and video tags

Add ons installed by third party programs are disabled by default

Improved WebSocket support

Get Firefox for your System

Download Firefox 8 (Just go to download page and it will automatically detect your OS and download the file; and install it)